


fugue

by Kalael



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Character, Dissociation, M/M, Marking, Mental Instability, Multi, powers that be are territorial fucks, pre S3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-21 01:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16149326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalael/pseuds/Kalael
Summary: Elias’ hand in his hair makes everything go fuzzy at the edges, like noise on a tv screen when the signal goes.  Things fizzle in and out of view.  Jon himself fizzles.  He’s not sure where he ends or begins, except he thinks that maybe his head is the start of himself and Elias’ hand is where he ends.(“If you’re just here for a lesson in etiquette, you can see yourself out.  What do you want?”  Michael sat silently for a bit, a dizzying presence that had started to give Jon the beginnings of a migraine.“A new perspective.” )





	fugue

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older piece I'd been intending to make much longer, but life happened and the story shifted. This is definitely AU now, and will be much shorter. But the overall mindfuckery will still be satisfying, I think.

Dissociation is a result of trauma, Jon remembers having read from a yellowed medical report. Part of a statement follow up. He’d skimmed it at the time, not finding anything useful for the Unknowing or even relating to the powers at hand. It was a coping mechanism, an attempt to separate the self from the situation. It had manifested in a hallucinatory manner for the statement giver long after the fact, resulting in a particularly gruesome although accidental suicide.

Hallucinations. Jon dazedly reaches out and feels the carpet in front of him. Hallucinations aren’t so vivid as this, so he is not hallucinating. But he is very much removed from himself at the moment. As one meant to observe, dissociation feels counter productive to fully understanding his experiences. In a nutshell, it’s _uncomfortable_.

Elias’ hand in his hair makes everything go fuzzy at the edges, like noise on a tv screen when the signal goes. Things fizzle in and out of view. Jon himself fizzles. He’s not sure where he ends or begins, except he thinks that maybe his head is the start of himself and Elias’ hand is where he ends. It feels nice. Grounding, even.

“Oh, Jon.” Elias sighs above him. He’s guided to rest his cheek on Elias’ knee. He doesn’t remember when he got on the floor. It’s possible he collapsed, Martin had been worrying over it all week and even Tim had raised some backwards concern. He hadn’t been feeling well. Maybe he feels fine now, though.

“Jon, stop thinking so much. You’re dragging yourself in circles. Focus on my hand for the moment.” Elias says, and so Jon does. His mind goes quiet in an instant. Small words surface. _Soft. Solid. Real._

Elias’ fingers card through Jon’s hair a while longer before they begin stroking down his forehead, his nose, his cheeks. Wherever Elias’ hands touch, Jon feels himself become real again. Elias kneads his shoulders with both hands and Jon shudders. He doesn’t slam back into awareness so much as slide, a gentle but nonetheless jarring feeling. Like easing into cold water with all his clothes on. He feels a weight in himself, and realizes the weight _is_ himself.

“I see you’ve come back to us. I did tell you to get some more rest before coming in this week. Honestly, sometimes you listen so well, but then…” Elias trails off while Jon pushes himself weakly from Elias’ knees. The hands on his shoulders don’t allow him to move far. It’s not a harsh pressure, just firm, and Jon still isn’t himself enough to fight it. He does find his glasses folded neatly on Elias’s thigh though, and he slips them back on.

“Although, I do wonder. You’ve met with something _unpleasant_ recently, haven’t you?” It’s strange, hearing Elias so cross, but it makes it easy to discern what unpleasantry he’s referring to.

“Not of my own doing.” Jon mutters. “Michael does what it likes.”

The tension in Elias’ legs goes rigid before smoothing out. Jon props his chin on the knee he’d previously been laying against, peering up through his eyelashes. Elias isn’t looking at him, his gaze fixed on something far off and away. He’s seeing something that isn’t even in this room, Jon realizes, and wonders what it could be. One of Elias’ hands has returned to stroking Jon’s hair, almost distractedly, and Jon settles within himself and the sensation.

“I see,” Elias says, and Jon knows he does. “We may need to give you some sort of precautions. As useful as it is being on such… _friendly_ terms with it, I’d rather prefer not to replace my Archivist so soon. You’ve been doing so well, and I would hate to see your mind put at such a disadvantage.”

It’s hard to tell when Elias actually cares and when he’s just trying to control Jon’s, the _Archivist’s_ life. He’s hardly going to say no to some extra protection though. Fascinating as Michael is and rare enough their encounters, Jon would prefer not to have it showing up in the archives unannounced. Elias makes a displeased hum that Jon can feel vibrating up through his chin, and he becomes completely aware of the situation at hand.

“I’d rather like to get off the floor,” Jon says tentatively. Elias releases him like he hadn’t just been stroking his hair like a child’s, or a dog’s. There are less polite things to compare, but Elias smiles and all Jon wants to do is get back to his office and have Martin make him a cup of tea. He slowly gets to his feet, grimacing as blood rushes down to his legs. He has no idea how long he’s been in the office, or how long he’d been in Elias’ lap on the floor.

The room feels awkward now. Or rather, Jon feels awkward being in the room and Elias is just smiling from his office chair like this is all perfectly normal. Maybe it is.

“Michael,” Elias brings Jon out of his spiraling panic, “I’m assuming it’s taken a liking to your office.”

Jon doesn’t like the way Elias’ unreadable eyes are focused on his scarred right hand.

“Not exactly. I don’t think so. It just...it really likes to catch people off guard.” It’s a weak explanation, but the only one Jon can think to offer. He has no idea why Michael is bothering him. He’s not even sure why Michael hasn’t just killed him yet. Elias makes a noise like a sigh, one Jon only catches because he’s known Elias as long as he has.

“Right. Well, I typically advise against your habit of sleeping in the archives, but I think after this latest stint I would like to offer up my office for this evening.” Jon opens his mouth to protest but Elias raises a hand. “Just tonight. Your flat should be properly warded but I would feel better once we’ve made sure.”

“My flat?” That sets Jon’s teeth on edge, but he isn’t necessarily surprised. Elias has folded his hands in front of his mouth now, watching. Jon can feel the irritation coming off the man but at least he’s reassured that it’s not directed at him.

There’s a long moment of silence. Jon fidgets, can’t help it, wants to get that cup of tea and lose himself in some statement. Eventually Elias blinks, and Jon finds it weird that he’s noticing that, but there’s a lot of things about Elias he supposes he’d rather not notice.

Elias smiles again, that faint curve of lips that Jon can never quite get a read on.

“I know you have a change of clothes in your little archive hideaway. Meet me back here at the end of your workday. I’d like you to make a statement about your earlier experience, at least whatever you remember of it.” Just like that Jon’s being dismissed. He’s so eager to leave he doesn’t even think about bringing up the strangely affectionate actions that brought him back to reality.

His scalp tingles.

Unsurprisingly, Martin is rabid with worry. Jon is accosted with offers of tea and snacks and faintly bemused looks from both Melanie and Tim as Martin works himself into a tizzy. It takes several cups of tea and assurances that no, he won’t be going home alone tonight and yes, Elias is aware of the situation. It’s unlikely the others are in any more danger than usual. Martin still hovers by the office door until Tim eventually drags him away to refile something.

Jon sits at his desk and stares blankly at the paperwork he’d been doing before Michael had shown up. He’s filled with something that could be dread, or just nausea. The entire event is still foggy but coming back into his office triggers his memory: the knocked over pencil holder, several new gouges in the plasterboard. A distinct lack of a blue door on the left wall. Jon shudders and blows the steam off his tea.

There are files on his desk. With a grateful eagerness he hasn’t felt since first starting as an institute researcher, he picks one off the top of the stack and turns on the tape recorder. At least, he thinks he does. 

Sometimes he’s rather convinced the thing goes off on its own.

\--

“You know, I rather prefer being on the other end of this.” Jon says uneasily. Elias’ office has always felt too small for how big it actually is. Knowing there’s likely some bones tucked into the drywall doesn’t help matters.

“Just consider it an incident report.” Elias tells him. He’s got his hands folded beneath his chin, and for all the world he looks as though he couldn’t care less about the situation. Jon still has the niggling feeling that Elias actually cares far too much, and the part of him that hungers for _more_ is pleased by that.

“Well. Regardless.” Jon breathes out a heavy sigh. “Statement of...Jonathan Sims, regarding...a jarring encounter with the Spiral.”

In a moment of panic the date escapes him. Elias says something, and Jon only catches the end of it. The compulsion hits like a double shot of whiskey.

“I’d gotten into work a bit late this morning,” Jon begins, and Elias settles into his chair as the tape recorder spins.

In a rare fit of spontaneity he’d stopped at a cafe for a coffee and a hot pressed sandwich. Vegetarian. Meat has been off putting to him lately. He’d gotten into work an hour or so after the others. Tim had been between his usual vicious sarcasm and subdued jealousy over the hot food, Melanie had turned up her nose at the bland coffee, Martin had beamed at him like Jon performing any kind of self care was worth gold stars. They’d all settled into their tentative new routines, and for the first few hours after that everything was fine.

Jon had just received two new written statements. One was likely a hoax, because the mothman was no concern of the archive’s. The other had some bones to it, hopefully not literally in the follow up. The Hunt was something too new, too violent to really understand the pattern. He’d finished another cup of coffee and looked up to consider calling Martin for tea, but had been distracted by a blue door.

“Oh, no.” He’d sighed. Michael stepped through, one foot after the other like something crawling with more legs than two.

“Archivist.” Michael had greeted, as though it weren’t plainly apparent that Jon wanted nothing to do with it. “I believe the phrase is ‘long time no see’.”

“I’m not sure where you’re picking up this lingo, but I’m _sure_ that at least from your end that’s a blatant lie.” Jon muttered. Michael just smiled, or whatever it was called when the thing’s face twisted backwards and inward. Jon’s eyes couldn’t follow it. He looked back down at his papers and hoped that Michael would just leave.

Of course that had been too much to hope for. Michael had taken the seat across from Jon’s desk and Jon refused to watch the action. Everything about it was wrong. Michael wasn’t even trying to feign humanity, barely kept a hold on the visage of the tall blond man Jon’s sure Michael stole the face from.

He’d been afraid that Elias couldn’t see them. He’d been right. Jon fell back into compulsion, a layer of fog and clarity surrounding him.

“I do believe Mike Crew was trying to teach you respect,” Michael crooned as though recounting a beloved memory, “I fear his attempts did not stick.”

“If you’re just here for a lesson in etiquette, you can see yourself out. What do you want?” _How do you keep getting into the archives,_ Jon really wanted to ask, but he didn’t feel confident enough to compel it. Michael sat silently for a bit, a dizzying presence that had started to give Jon the beginnings of a migraine.

“A new perspective.” It finally settled on. It had been followed up with laughter that made Jon cover his ears. Even his throat had felt it, like swallowing the lit end of a cigarette. “You’re so slow. And you’re hardly putting yourself into any interesting situations now that you’re back in the archives.”

Jon would have thought Michael sounded petulant, but it was always hard to tell with Michael.

“I _am_ the Archivist,” Jon tried tentatively, “so really, I’m not so sure what you would have expected.”

Michael had just tilted its head. Or curled it. It did something impossible that Jon’s eyes couldn’t follow, as usual, and his breath had begun to speed up.

“Ah yes, those eyes of yours.” Jon had no idea what that meant and Michael hadn’t seemed likely to expand on it. It didn’t sound like Michael was referring to Jon’s own eyes at all. “Let’s give them something new to observe.”

This was where things had gotten fuzzy. Jon had protested, Michael had reached across with impossibly massive hands, Jon had gotten out of his chair and found himself backed up against the wall. Michael had done some equivalent of a _tsk_ and at some point had left those gouges in the wall.

Jon thinks the gouges had been another warning. Look what I can do to you if you don’t stay still. He would have taken the gouges over whatever had happened next.

Impossibly vast hands, or things nothing like hands, had gripped the sides of his face. Needlepoints under his eyes threatened to put them out. Jon hadn’t been able to breathe, but at the same time had been breathing too much too loudly. Then it all become an ache. Even thinking about it now, Jon can’t describe the ache in a coherent fashion. It wasn’t so much physical as it was like having low tide forced through his mind. But that wasn’t right, either. He’d spiralled, fractured, fractioned. Had he been a ‘he’ at all, in that eternity?

It had been too much, and then it was over. Michael had gently put Jon back into his chair, patted him on the head with hard fingers that thankfully didn’t cut, and then it had left. Or so Jon assumes. He doesn’t remember much aside from pressure on his head and dizzying lack of identity. But his eyes were still intact. He had been concerned about that. Concerned enough to somehow leave his desk and wander up to Elias’ office, where he presumably collapsed.

It bothers Jon that he can’t remember. Obviously his assistants had seen something but he doesn’t know what. Maybe they had just assumed he was overtired again.

“I’m too old for this. Simultaneously, far too young.” Jon says aloud. Reality snaps, and Elias is staring at him from across the desk.

“One might argue.” Elias says. “Statement ends.”

“Never again,” Jon breathes, “I’ll be taking the statements from now on.”

“You’ll certainly find no arguments here. Now then, my couch is a pullout. Feel free to get comfortable while I continue with my paperwork.”

The feeling of discomfort that had followed him earlier creeps back. Regardless, Jon gets busy with pulling out the couch and settling upon it. As he gets settled, Elias skirts around him to reach a filing cabinet and as he passes he strokes his fingers through Jon’s hair.

“Do try to get some sleep.”

“Try is the operative word, there.” Neither of them laugh.

As Jon watches Elias until his eyes begin to droop, it occurs to him that both Elias and Michael have this awful habit of touching Jon’s head. 

His eyes shut, and his dreams are fractured.


End file.
